Abandoned Hudson Valley: Exploring New York’s Forsaken Past

Captures the haunting beauty of abandoned places in the Hudson Valley, raising questions about the past.

Just north of New York City, straddling both sides of the Hudson River, is the region known as the Hudson Valley. With its country roads, county fairs, long stretches of river, high mountain peaks, farm-to-table restaurants and quirky, bohemian villages, the Hudson Valley offers both modern energy and a trip back in time. There is history everywhere.

On these pages, you will see a different side of the Hudson Valley. Photographers Liz Cooke and Andy Milford take you to neglected and abandoned asylums, schools, churches, mansions, farmhouses and hotels. You will see places like the once-hopping resorts of the Catskills (known as the Borscht Belt) that are deteriorating in plain sight. You will see inside the ruins of psychiatric institutions and walk the hallways of forsaken mansions with furnishings perfectly intact and personal effects left neatly behind.

Why are there so many abandoned places in the Hudson Valley? These images do not propose answers, but they do raise questions that may only be answered with the passage of time.